Heloísa Fernandes

Pianist and composer Heloísa Fernandes was born in the city of Presidente Prudente in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, and now lives in the city of São Paulo. She began studying the piano at age five with her mother, who was a pianist and musician. Further on in her formal education, she was a student of pianists Paulo Gori and Gilberto Tinetti, with whom she cultivated her taste for classical music.
She graduated with degrees in piano performance from the Conservatório Dramático e Musical de São Paulo, in conducting from the Centro de Estudos Tom Jobim, and in composition from the University of São Paulo.
Her repertoire focuses on sublime jazz and instrumental interpretations of popular Brazilian music.
In 2001, she was one of five finalists in Brazil's leading musical competition – the Prêmio Visa de Música Brasileira – recognition that brought her to national attention and broadened her professional career. Since then she has studied Brazilian popular music, folk music, and dance, drawing on them as inspiration for her compositions.
In 2005, she accompanied the Italian harmonica soloist Gianluca Littera with the Chamber Orchestra of the University of São Paulo conducted by Gil Jardim. Later that year she was invited by the city of São Paulo to participate in a tribute to the legendary Brazilian pianist Guiomar Novaes, giving a solo piano performance in the Teatro Municipal of São João da Boa Vista.

2005 also included the release of her premiere recording – Fruto – on Brazil's Maritaca label. The repertoire consists of her own compositions as well as her arrangements of works by Pixinguinha and Caetano Veloso. Her musical collaborators included some of Brazil's finest musicians -- percussionists Naná Vasconcelos, Ari Colares, Sérgio Reze, bassist Zeca Assumpcão, flutist Teco Cardoso, and musical director Gil Jardim.
The release of this CD led to performances throughout Brazil, and recognition for Fernandes worldwide.
In the last year, she has developed partnerships with Brazilian composer Léa Freire and saxophonist Maria Bragança, including a series of concerts with Bragança at the Festival of Minas Gerais held at the universities of São João Del Rey and Ouro Preto. She also made her international debut to critical acclaim at Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina.

For the next phase of her composing work, Fernandes organized the project Melodias do Brasil – Identidade e Transformação. Over the course of twelve months, she studied the research of Mário de Andrade and his colleagues, who had documented Brazilian folkloric melodies in the years 1936 to 1938. They transcribed melodies from all parts of the country, and published 570 of them in Melodias Registradas por Meios Não-Mecânicos in 1946, the first edited material about folklore in Brazil.
Andrade believed that Brazilian composers could find the soul of Brazil in the melodies of its people, and that these melodies could be inspirations to create new works. His collection included candomblé, maracatú, cateretê, samba, toada, and many more. Fernandes chose a group of these melodies to be the spirits of new compositions. Their transformation into new works will surprise people because they are not typical of the way Brazilian folklore is handled by today's musicians. Rather than emulating strong colors, pulse, and rhythms, Fernandes has created a delicate and introspective world.
Arranged, performed, and recorded with her colleagues Zeca Assumpção (double bass) and Ari Colares (percussion), this collection is now being released as the CD Candeias, and is being presented by the trio on six concert stages in the Brazilian cities of Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, and São Paulo. Musician (viola caipira) and composer Ivan Vilela has provided critical commentary about the music in the CD booklet that is illustrated by his nephew, Fernando Vilela.

Fernandes has emerged from these twelve months of intense and solitary study with an important contribution to Brazilian music, and an invigorated desire to compose more works in the days ahead. She hopes that she has been true to Mário de Andrade's aim – that the melodies he documented serve as catalysts for new musical expression; and to her own aim – to express sentiments that move her most deeply.

International Management
Michael Grofsorean / Musica Extraordinaria
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